Thursday, August 09, 2007

Brothers in Hevron: The Maggid's Tale

My good friend from the JBlogosphere, the Maggid of Bergenfield writes an interesting tale entitled "Brothers" about what might have happened in Hevron the other day.

"The following story is based on a picture from the front page of the New York Times on August 8, 2007. The caption reads: Israel riot police met resistance yesterday as they removed Jewish settlers from illegal residences in the West bank city of Hebron. As one settler was carried off near the market, an officer rushed to pick up the man’s glasses from the ground."

5 comments:

Sap. Pure unadulterated sap. The cops that come to evacuate are thugs. But they are thugs at all protests and evacuations, Beitar Jerusalem matches and rock concerts as well. however, many of them are goyim and sadists and take perverse pleasure at beating up settlers.The rabbis who brainwash their followers to believe these people are our brothers are naive and misguided. However, they are also morally wrong for not protesting police violence against Arabs. We should have been the first people out protesting against police violence against Arabs but we accepted it. Just like we naively believed that somehow the Revisionist and Likud opportunists such as Sharon were with us. now we pay for our sins.

Ben Bayit: While all the Yasamnikim, without exception ARE thugs...not every single last person involved in the expulsion is.

We should have been the first people out protesting against police violence against Arabs but we accepted it.

I agree 100% -- we never realized how bad the police actually were (and still are).

Sappy or not -- there still are a few policemen (and many more soldiers) who are still on the brother list.

Here's an important story from today on A7:

IDF Eviction Refusal More Widespread Than Reportedby Ezra HaLevi

The bus driver of the Duchifat Battalion soldiers who were sent to Hevron after some of their comrades refused told the story of the group’s growing ire at the situation.

The unreported story emerged Wednesday of the fate of the rest of the Duchifat Brigade who did not refuse orders and boarded the bus to Hevron to provide security for the eviction.

The bus, having been blocked by parents and activists both in the Jordan Valley and in Gush Etzion, was once again blocked by activists and residents at the entrance to Kiryat Arba. They stood in the road and refused to move. Border Police Commander Raphael Ben David, stationed in Shechem but in Hevron by chance, stopped his vehicle and, together with his driver, tried to disperse the protesters by force.

When he saw that he was not succeeding, the officer boarded the bus of Duchifat soldiers and asked that the soldiers and officers disembark and assist him. “Instead of complying, nearly all the soldiers on the bus began to yell at him that they had no intention of helping him because they are not taking part in the evacuation, and that he has no right to disperse the demonstrators on his own and they refuse to help him,” the bus driver later told Chaim Cohen, part of a group of activists from Givatayim who came to oppose the eviction.

“They soon threw the Border Police officer off of the bus. He exited, clearly humiliated, and once again began struggling with the demonstrators – this time using clear violence. Bystanders said he grabbed the wrist of a mother-of-12 and flipped her over. She landed on her shoulder and was badly bruised.”

Meanwhile, bystanders reported that the soldiers on the bus made makeshift signs expressing support, displaying them through the bus’s side windows.

Cohen, part of a group of activists calling themselves the “Givatayim Settlers” (Givatayim is a notoriously leftist suburb of Tel Aviv), said the bus driver approached him later in the day and asked where he could find a tour of Hevron, as he had never been there before. Cohen obliged and relayed the story that the driver, who was clearly impressed, told him.

Maariv: Public Refuser Only Tip of the Iceburg

The Maariv daily, in its front-page story Wednesday, reported that "hundreds of soldiers refused and were reassigned to washing dishes, cleaning tents or helping in the mess hall by their commanders - out of the sites of the cameras." The report stated that the soldier who objected to taking part in the Hevron eviction were not just religious hesder students, but many others as well.

Posters, Leaflets Praise Soldiers’ RefusalThe Committee For Saving the Nation and the Land, a Chabad-run activist group, has posted fliers across the country and will distribute them in synagogues this Sabbath proclaiming: “'That excel in strength, that do his commandments' [Psalms 103:20] These soldiers are worthy of being written up in gold in the history of the people of Israel as heroes of Israel. With your actions you shall save the Jewish community in Judea and Samaria and save the people of Israel from all who seek to destroy it."

The group is planning a large rally in support of the soldiers.

Campaign of SMS SupportSupporters of the refusers have published the names and phone numbers of some of the soldiers, encouraging supporters to send them text messages letting them know that there are people who believe they did the right thing. All numbers can be dialed from outside Israel by dropping the first zero and replacing it with 011 972:

I was at an "illegal" demonstration during the Oslo heydey. I saw a cop beating a fellow with a big knitted kippa and long peyot who kept on saying "my brother, you are my brother, even though you beat me, you are my brother". silliness like this is why the broad campaign (and it must be broad for it to work) of civil disobedience never took off.

BTW, I don't believe that civil disobedience has to be non-violent. That is just one opinion - largely based on the theory of John Rawls - but there are other opinions

I would say the story is more hopeful than historically accurate.It is true that the policeman picked up the glasses for the settler. The rest is meant to suggest that we are all brothers, often with similar backgrounds, if you step back a generation.I have no regrets if my mishtara officer is not the typical one. I'm sure there are such individuals, and as the story points out, there are all kinds. There are rock throwing demonstrators and baton wielding police. Still, a note of hopefulness is only good.Maybe it can start a trend of tolerance...Either way, the picture in the Times inspired me. The picture is true. The rest is conjecture.The Maggid